A trial in which a man claims that his use of the Monsanto weed killer Roundup caused him to develop non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma cancer, while defense attorneys claimed the chemical is harmless and the plaintiff just unlucky.
The trial, which began October 3 in the 22nd Judicial Circuit of Missouri Court, is being streamed live courtesy of Courtroom View Network.
In recent months, lawyers for Monsanto have appeared to be on a winning streak successfully defending the company in nine Roundup lawsuits after a string of losses in California totaling almost $2.4 billion in plaintiff damages. Last week, a 21st St. Louis Judicial Court ruling by Judge Brian May tossed out a lawsuit via a directed verdict, a finding that evidence in the case was insufficient for a jury to find the company negligent and liable.
During opening remarks, Roe Frazer of the Nashville-based Frazer LLP law firm representing the plaintiff John Durnell said Roundup caused his cancer and asked a jury to punish Monsanto with punitive damage awards.
“For what they (Monsanto) did to John and to deter them in the future,” Frazer said.
Frazer said Monsanto didn’t follow their own code of proper conduct and accused the company of throwing out studies that found Roundup to be a carcinogen, instead conducting their own studies showing it to be harmless.
The product first came on the market in 1974.
Frazer said Durnell started using the product in 1997 killing weeds in a neighborhood project. He added that his client first noticed a pain in his groin and a knot in that location. He underwent chemotherapy treatments and his cancer is currently in remission.
“That doesn’t mean there’s a cure," Frazer said. "There is no cure. He’ll have to go to the doctor every six months.”
Frazer added that part of the suffering for his client is the suspense every time he visits his doctor, not knowing if the cancer has reoccurred.
“It takes cancer a long time (to develop),” Frazer said. “You do not get cancer on day one (from exposure). They (Monsanto) wanted to wait and cross their fingers, that’s what Monsanto did.”
Frazer said that Roundup has not only glyphosate in it an ingredient that he claimed caused cancer, but other toxics including surfactant used to help the substance cling to plant leaves, arsenic and formaldehyde, all of them carcinogens.
“You know it’s a poison,” he said. “They (defense attorneys) will say we only put a teeny-weeny (toxics) in there. A company should not be allowed to make (such) choices for customers. Your DNA gets damaged.”
Frazer said the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) in 2016 found glyphosate be a “probable carcinogen.”
“They (defense attorneys) are going to attack IARC like you can’t imagine,” he said.
Frazer added that the IARC finding had been made by 17 scientists including a representative of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) the regulatory agency that approved the substance for marketing, as well as a rep from Monsanto.
Monsanto’s defense attorney Shayna Cook with the Chicago-based Goldman Tomaselli law firm said Durnell’s cancer was a natural occurrence caused by mutant cells replicating and that Roundup is non-toxic.
“The answer is in the science and the studies,” Cook said. “That is what the evidence will show. Natural (cell) copy errors cause cancer. Roundup does not cause cancer. We have 50 years of research.”
Cook said that mantle cell lymphoma of the kind that Durnell has is a common form of cancer found in older white men and that in 95% of cases cells divide making naturally occurring and repeated copy errors.
“A cell mutation doesn’t mean cancer,” Cook said. “But as we get older (cell) mutations increase and that’s how we get cancer.”
The use of Roundup increased 600% since its first sales in 1974 Cook maintained, but cases of lymphoma have not made a similar increase. She said the chemicals in Roundup including arsenic and surfactants – there is no proof of their harm.
Cook disputed the IARC finding that the substance is a probable carcinogen. Eating red meat, drinking hot beverages and working late-night hours were also identified by the agency as probably carcinogens.
“They (IARC) looked at theoretical risks, they are not a regulatory agency (like EPA),” Cook said.
Health Canada, the EPA in Australia and New Zealand had like the U.S. EPA also found no link from Roundup with cancer. An Agricultural Health Study Cook called the largest such study to date had also found no association at all.